Andrew Kilvert, Jayapura – A group of Indonesian settlers held hostage by self-proclaimed Irian Jaya rebels were returned home yesterday after a 27-day ordeal in the remote Bewani valley across the Papua New Guinea border.

The 11 hostages, seven women and four men, were released by PNG army and police units on Sunday, after a three-day operation.

An alleged Free Papua Organisation (OPM) group led by Hans Bomey seized the settlers at Arso on May 5, in a raid which left four dead from machete wounds, and marched them across the border into PNG. The captors demanded 20,000 kina ($13,160) and automatic weapons from the PNG Government for their release.

But many supporters of independence for Irian Jaya, or West Papua as they call it, wonder if Bomey is a genuine rebel.

Moses Weror, an OPM spokesman in Madang, PNG, accused the group of being "Fake OPM", a charge also made in Monday's edition of the Jayapura newspaper Tafa Irian. Others say Mr Bomey's group is supplied and armed by a Kopassus (Indonesian Army special forces) detachment stationed at Arso. "These rebels are seen driving around Arso with Kopassus," one Arso resident said.

A human rights researcher in the Irian Jaya provincial capital, Jayapura, who visited the hostages, also accused the Indonesian military of supplying weapons to the rebels. Other sources in the border region say the transfer of supplies from the military to the Hans Bomey rebels is a monthly event. A spokesman for Mr Bomey's group, Mr Augustus Runtomboi, admitted during an interview in Vanimo on Saturday to having links with military officials in Jayapura, including the regional commander, Major-General Amir Sembiring.